Is war over Parks Board leader ended? No. Court ruling shifts fight to City Council.

Cincinnati Enquirer reporters Carrie Blackmore Smith and James Pilcher explain how money is spent and flows through the Cincinnati Park Board and the Cincinnati Parks Foundation.
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Dianne Rosenberg (front) waits as her lawyers and the lawyers for the city of Cincinnati talk to Common Pleas Judge Charles Kubicki. Rosenberg has asked the judge to determine whether the city must let her keep her Park Board seat.(Photo: The Enquirer/Carrie Blackmore Smith)

A court decision Tuesday was expected to end the ongoing battle over whether the leader of the Cincinnati Park Board could keep her seat. It didn't.

Now the fight shifts to City Council, with Mayor John Cranley saying he will move forward once again with his replacement for park leader Dianne Rosenberg. The council includes three new members, making the vote uncertain.

In December, Cranley moved to replace Rosenberg immediately, saying her term was up Dec. 31. A majority of the outgoing council named a replacement. Rosenberg sued, saying her term wasn't up.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Charles Kubicki gave a split decision Tuesday.

He decided that Rosenberg's term ends Feb. 1, a win for Cranley. But Kubicki also said Rosenberg can stay until a replacement is named, a win for her. And his ruling voided the council vote confirming Jim Goetz' appointment to Rosenberg's seat, again favoring her.

Cranley said he is resubmitted Goetz's name, with a vote expected on Jan. 31.

Three of the five members who approved Goetz's appointment are still on council: Christopher Smitherman, David Mann and Amy Murray. So are three who voted against it: Chris Seelbach, P.G. Sittenfeld and Wendell Young.

Requests for comment by phone and email from new members of council Greg Landsman and Tamaya Dennard were not immediately returned.

According to Mann, Landsman and Dennard signed a motion in December not vote on a replacement for Rosenberg until the dispute over the expiration of her term was resolved.

"I hope my colleagues will say we know the term is over," Mann said. "Now, the choice is between moving forward by selecting a replacement or not."

Letting this go on and on "would be the worst thing that could happen," said Mann, who said he would again vote to approve Goetz.

Newly elected councilmember Jeff Pastor said, through a statement made by his chief of staff Steven Megerle, that he will review any submission made by the mayor for this post.

"The council member has requested Mr. Goetz’s resume and bona fides to determine if he has the qualification and experience to serve on the Park Board," Megerle said.

Things between Rosenberg and Cranley soured over a range of topics, including a dispute over the control of endowment funds given to the board by Cincinnatians in their wills.

Cranley says the Cincinnati Parks should treat endowments like other public dollars, particularly because independent and state auditors have said the way the parks currently manages the money opens the city up to legal liabilities. Currently, the funds are spent out of a PNC Bank account, of which only the parks leaders have access.

Two years of talks between the mayor and the Park Board' about how the endowments should be managed reached a stalemate toward the end of last year. Then Cranley moved to replace Rosenberg – who had backed Cranley's opponent in the 2017 mayoral race.

The fight turned bitter. A lawyer, who said he was talking to Cranley as a friend, said in a deposition for the suit that he and Cranley had a conversation in December in which the mayor "said elections have consequences, Dianne backed Yvette Simpson and she should have offered her resignation after the election." The lawyer said Cranley vowed to destroy Rosenberg in the media, which Cranley later denied.

Rosenberg was named to the board in 2015 by Cranley. Her husband, J. David, works at Keating Muething & Klekamp (KMK), the same Fourth Street law firm where Cranley worked before being elected mayor. The Rosenbergs are philanthropists who gave $1 million to put the bench swings in Smale Riverfront Park; they also were contributors to Cranley's first mayoral campaign.

The lawsuit before Kubicki focused on precisely when Rosenberg's term on the park board ended.

Both sides said they had documents that proved when her term started and ended.

In the end, the judge decided that Rosenberg was fulfilling the unexpired term of a park commissioner who left her seat before the end of her six-year term. That commissioner, Cathy Crain, joined the board on Feb. 1, 2012, the judge ruled. Rosenberg took over for Crain in January 2015 and Kubicki decided her term ends when Crain's would have: Feb. 1.

City lawyers told Kubicki that Rosenberg could not be "held over" until her replacement was found. They wanted the judge to declare Rosenberg's seat vacant.

But Kubicki said that was not how he read the City Charter. He ruled she, like any other board member, can hold over until her replacement is ratified by council.

The vote for her replacement will be an interesting test of coalitions on the new council. Of the six members still on council, vote was 3 yes (Mann, Murray, Smitherman) -3 no (Sittenfeld, Seelbach, Young). https://t.co/Vq2iZGmyll